Step Families Support Group

Traditionally, a stepfamily is the family one acquires when a parent enters a new marriage, whether the parent was widowed or divorced. This community is focused on many of the relationships and issues that may arise within stepfamilies where you may find answers from some members and you may help other members with their questions.

Piggy Back on "How Much Child Support"

I hate to sound like a p*$$ing contest, but this is a subject I have SO wanted to vent about and keep not doing it...and now I think the dam has broken since I've read "How Much Child Support". I don't want to hijack that discussion, so just posting my vent in a new one!!

My fiance and his ex divorced after 1 year of marriage. His child support was set at a maximum amount for his then-salary, at $708/month. In the past 4 years, he has never missed or been late for a child support payment - in fact, up until last month he personally deposited the payments into her bank account monthly (YUCK).

As of the most insane child support court case EVER last month, now pays $1150 a month for ONE 5 year old son that he has in his care 45% of the time (we actually tracked it on a calendar for over a year in prep for this case). He makes a whopping $55K annually. Mind you, out of that he pays (and has always paid) his son's medical insurance, contributes to a college savings plan, pays half his co-pays for doctor's visits, pays half of the extracurricular activities organized by the bio mother (soccer - that's it), and pays all of the extracurricular activities organized on his own (gymnastics, swimming, martial arts, etc.).

His son is not "sent to us with an overnight bag" - he has his own room, toys, clothes, and life in our home. We take him everywhere possible to expose him to life - beach vacations, mountain vacations, children's fairs, amusement parks, road trips to visit family, etc.

The bio mother takes him NOWHERE. He literally rots in her living room watching TV. I'm not exaggerating. She has taken him on ONE roadtrip in the past two years. Now she has gone to Jamaica by herself, leaving him behind on Christmas eve to stay at her parents (she would not let him be with us; there were no other guests at her parents', no other children, and no one bothered to plan Santa for him either - she [and her idiot parents] just robbed him of that).

In addition to never taking this child anywhere, in the past year he has yet to be wearing a pair of shoes that fit when we pick him up. 90% of the time they've been too small. This last time they were used shoes that his feet were lost in - he personally, without any word from us, immediately changed his shoes when we got home. He is five and she still sends him to us in 3T and 4T underwear.

And in all of this...his mother "gets" the tax deduction. For what reason I have YET to figure out.

And the reason the child support was raised...because the mother decided to move to the second most undesirable county in our state(with regard to schools, and according to publicly posted information from many organizations, the main one being the Department of Education for our state). She moved out of her basement apartment in a nice home (albeit in a more suburban area)...she believes she is a "city girl" (what a crock)...and then she quit her job (she was a teacher's assistant). How this is mature, responsible, logical, and keeping their son as a priority on her list...I'll never know. So now she has decided to take out student loans and go to school full time for ART. Mind you, my best friends in the world are artists (one dance instructor, one musician, one painter/sculptor)...but they had the luxury of not having had a child at a young age and not having to have the responsibilites associated. Bottom line is - this girl will do ANYTHING not to have to truly WORK. In all of this, with a couple of additional reasons I could write another novel about, my fiance filed for custody modification.

At any rate, the judge decided the bio mother's actions were "just wonderful", furthering her education and all, and chided my fiance for not having offered to increase the "child" (ha) support on his own outside of court. Mind you, he offered (pre-filing of any court cases) to keep their son during the school week, and continue to pay her the same child support, so that she could have her school time, and their son could go to a school that actually passes its CRCT scores. His ex was "offended" at that.

So the outcome is that he pays $1150/month to include "extraordinary educational expenses" so that his son can attend a private school since his mother has moved to the ghetto, and his ex can play college kid in a way that I never got to - and I didn't even have a child back then!!!

SICK. And I'd like to keep reminding myself to think of the child in this...but I AM - the child should be with a stable, loving couple who understands the responsibilies associated and actually makes him a priority!

Sigh...sorry so long, just needed to get it out. And we're exhausted legally - this is what it is and there's nothing else we can do. As long as she stays in that nasty county, we're stuck with the same judge for custody issues, and even for this financial one if we try to appeal. Thankfully we're in a new county now, and we can go back to court in two years to try to do something about this financial issue (in our state the $ 'follows' the dad).

I have to say, I hope this judge rots in hell. She has used my fiance has an alternative to the lazy ex-cow being on welfare. She's a communist pig. There, I said it.

It does seem like a lot of money even by todays standards. I read of people paying maybe $300 a month but the where they live and how much they earn plays into the decision.

If he is still voluntarily paying for anything such as medical co-pays I'd stop that. That's what support is all about and she should be paying 100% of the childs expenses except ones the father wants to add to enrich the childs life.

Most court systems have a standard they go by. Try to find out what this is. Maybe your attorney or if you don't have one go to the county law library. If your attorney seems evasive find another one but beware of false promises from them in getting a reduction - for a fee of course.

Once you've determined that standard you may have recourse to file a request to have the issue reheard.

One thing really bothered me about your Post was the judge being delighted about her bettering her life. Although I am also I don't think child support should be increased just because the other parent wants to quit their job and/or move.

That's the purpose of alamony and if the judge wants to support the ex wife via alamony he should say so and allow your husband to present his side of the case.

Thanks for the advice - I'll relay to him that he might want to check the orders to see if he needs to be paying those co-pays.

Unfortunately on the standards, most of it in our state is &quot;discretionary&quot;, and this judge exercised her poor discretion, against my fiance, on every gray point. If I thought the ex had a dime to her name I'd swear she paid the judge off. It was that illogical and odd. We've researched and spoken with our previous attorney as well as a new one, and it seems the laws here are too liberal and vague in the 'discretionary' areas to really do anything about this. The new attorney says it all really comes down to the judge on all these discretionary points (inclusion of imputed income vs. actual, inclusion of extraordinary educational expenses, credit to the father for time spent, phase-in of an increase greater than 15%, etc.), and we got a really bad one.

Oh my gosh - did he have a lawyer? I can't believe a judge said this. Were they high or was she sleeping with them? I think this needs to be appealed.

I know in my state if a child is with the other parent 90 days plus, child support is reduced because it is considered shared custody. If its shared custody, both parents do have to provide clothes, etc.., Child care and health insurance should be built into the equation for child support so if he pays it, it should reduce what he pays.

I can't believe a judge would allow her to lower her child's standard of living so she could quit and go to school, but then again a judge said &quot;good for you!&quot; to my hubby's ex when she quit her job to be a stay at home mom to 2 girls in school full time. She wasn't even going to school. HOWEVER - they did look at what my hubby's new child support payment would be and since it went down (due to no daycare or private school) she said it was okay to impute zero income on the mom. Child support went from 1200 to 820, but also thanks to mom's decision to sit home on her ass all day, the children's standard of living was lowered $450 per month.

If you did not have a lawyer you really need one and I really think this case deserves an appeal. Look at the child support calculators and see what they recommend. The judge should not have deviated from this without reason!

Believe it or not, he had a lawyer. That saddens me too - I'm not quite sure why he had to pay $10k for...I don't know what?!?!?!

Incidentally, I'm going to be making an appointment for a consult for a pre-nup in the next few weeks, and although I've already talked to a close-family-friend-attorney who tells me we're up sh*$ creek basically, I'm going to run it by him anyway.

We've researched appealing, and the outcome is not good. There are three possible &quot;good&quot; (ha-ha) outcomes: 1) the appeals court grants an appeal and the entire case is heard again, by the same judge; 2) appeal is granted and a portion of the case is heard again, by the same judge; 3) the appeal is granted and the case is heard again, by the same judge, with specific guidelines for the judge to follow.

#1 and #2 will result in nothing good. #3 gave me hope, but my attorney friend has in a nutshell told me this judge is crazy (she personally has tried cases before her and says you never know which way she's going to go, and she's been on her 'good' side and her 'bad' side, but whichever way, she's still nuts), and that she essentially does not even have to follow any guidelines set forth by the appeals court!!! Everything seems to be &quot;at her discretion&quot;.

The worst part is...here's the legislation regarding the &quot;extraordinary educational expense&quot; he's having to pay (and for which, he's not even getting to decide WHERE his son goes to private school by this judge!!!):

From Senate Bill 382: Extraordinary educational expenses. Extraordinary educational expenses may be a basis for Deviation from the Presumptive Amount of Child Support. Extraordinary educational expenses include, but are not limited to, tuition, room and board, lab fees, books, fees, and other reasonable and necessary expenses associated with special needs education or private elementary and secondary schooling that are appropriate to the Parent's financial abilities and to the lifestyle of the Child if the Parents and the Child were living together.

It is absolutely preposterous to assume that, were the two of them still married, a family living on my fiance's salary with a wife/mother who, based on past tax years, exercised an earning potential of about $20,000 annually, could afford private school tuition. This is a school that the ex-wife put him in on her own accord, 2 years following their divorce, and where she received a discount because she WAS an assistant teacher. Before she decided she didn't need to work.

The above alone seems reason enough (to me - but clearly what do I know at this point) for an appeals court to grant an appeal and instruct the judge to omit this expense. But who the hells knows anymore.

What scares me is that we're getting married next July, and plan on trying to get pregnant in the year after. That will be about the time the 2-year-mark will be up, and we can take this back to court in our county, and have the $ adjusted, and this time by a true family court judge (the court we just dealt with this in is not a 'family court' - they don't have those in that county). But I'm scared even a new, sane judge will continue to include this &quot;extraordinary educational expense&quot;, as judge's aren't quick to overturn a previous judge's decision. (S)He will assume the prior judge heard and decided on points that precluded her decision to include it. Which never actually happened.

And where does that put my child-to-be??? They certainly won't be going to any private school any time soon!!

:( :( :( So we'll see what this new attorney says in the next week or so...not that we can afford to even appeal at this point anyway.

I live in Ohio, and have recently found that the courts bow down to the BM, no matter what the BF has done, given up, or anything. This is our case and will post story...GL and get ready for the long haul!!!

CRAZY!!!! I have never heard of anyone paying that much with that kind of income. We pay a third and make close to 2 times the income, damn! I am sorry. I do however know the feeling, no matter what, her in Florida as well, the BM walks on water. Ours does not work either and feeds off the system. She uses OUR child support to gamble and drink and we can do nothing about it! We pay a lot of extras as well due to SS being special needs, but she is suppose to help, of course she cant if she isnt working...GO figure! I am really sorry you have to go thru all this crap, and I wont comment about the amount, I do not know the standards of other states, but here, it goes by income and there would be no way anyone would get that much a month with your income (please take no offense by that, not knocking the money you guys make)......

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